Deleting Access Denied Files

You’ve probably seen or experienced this at least once. You try to delete a folder or file and instead of it going into the recycle bin, you get an error message telling you that you either don’t have access or that the object is currently in use by another process and that you will need to terminate that process first. Problem is, you don’t know what the heck that means! If that folder has no files inside it, than you’ll probably be even more confused. Read on to see how you can combat this scenario and delete those files once and for all!

I’m sure almost all veteran freeware diggers out there have heard of a neat utility called ‘Unlocker’. This nifty little thing allows you to unlock the processes accessing the folder or file in question so that you can delete them. Here are some of the other error messages you might see pertaining to this problem as quoted on their website:

Cannot delete file: Access is denied
There has been a sharing violation.
The source or destination file may be in use.
The file is in use by another program or user.
Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

You can download Unlocker here.

Using the utility is dead simple and it is explained on their website along with pictures to go with it so I won’t get too much into it here. Besides, it basically takes only four steps. Right click on the folder/file, choose the ‘Unlocker’ option, unlock the processes and then delete the file. Voila! The item should now be in the recycle bin and shouldn’t be able to mock you anymore by just sitting there.

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